Scene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at Center

Scene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at Center

Theodor de Bry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An allegorical scene with a warning against venereal disease set in a landscape in a circle at center. At right, a figure plays the lute in front of a fountain with Venus and Cupid. At center, a man gestures towards the fountain, while facing left towards a figure with a spear standing over a man crouching to drink from a stream into which a dog is urinating. Around the central circle, strapwork ornaments on a crosshatch background. The scene is a reverse copy of a print by Johannes Sadeler (Hollstein XXI.163.492) after a print by Christoph Schwarz.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Scene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at CenterScene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at CenterScene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at CenterScene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at CenterScene with a Warning Against Venereal Disease in a Circle at Center

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.